Certainly one principle of "Good" UI design is that the fewer screens/keystrokes/navigation do-hickies the better. However, this assumes that the problem space is a repetitive task. If a user operates a UI only once or twice, the user might prefer a more verbose interface, with MORE screens that explained in detail what the options were.

There is a dissonance between a "fast" interface (OMI in your example) and a "easy-to-learn" interface (Your modern GUI). Neal Stephenson wrote a short book that illuminates the subject nicely. In the book he extols the virtues of CLI's (Command line interfaces) as "fast" interfaces.

However, GUI's have taken hold because they are exceptionally easy to learn; commands are easily identified and labeled, commands can often be done/undone non-destructively. Again, these virtues are most useful on the first few interations of using a program.

As a power user, I've come to prefer CLIs -- partly because I have internalized enough knowledge of the commands in my head, but also because I have the tools (man pages, command line completion, google) to discover new and different commands.

-------------------------------------
Nothing is too wonderful to be true
-- Michael Faraday

In reply to Re: Can I keep my OMI? by freddo411
in thread Can I keep my OMI? by pg

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